


The Princess and the Troll (based on the Rebecca is ill theory)

by BoleynC



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Rebecca's POV, even if you don't I hope you'll like it anyway???, if you like the white sisters hopefully you'll like this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 11:27:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12725760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoleynC/pseuds/BoleynC
Summary: Rebecca reveals a devastating secret.





	The Princess and the Troll (based on the Rebecca is ill theory)

**Author's Note:**

> TW: illness

My sister and I used to play a game when I was little. It was my all time favourite. We had an old rocking horse in the nursery, all dark wood with the most beautiful soft black mane that you could stroke your fingers through. I used to pretend I was a princess or a fair maiden, riding on my noble steed through an enchanted forest full of flowers and fairies and magic. I imagined my hair flowing out behind me, and that I wore a yellow gown with long draping bell sleeves, a crown of flowers atop my head.

Chrissie played the troll. She was excellent at that, hunching her back, twitching her long fingers, even putting on an ugly, wicked snarl. Chrissie was always too beautiful for me to see her as a real troll, but I loved that she tried, and I loved that my big sister wanted to play. 

As I rode through my wonderland, Chrissie would jump out at me, and the fair princess would let out a terrible, pitiful shriek as she fell to the forest floor. I would arrange myself on the nursery carpet with a hand draped dramatically over my forehead, eyes closed, eyelashes fluttering.

That was the climax of the game, my star turn, my moment. And then we would change the story altogether. Chrissie stopped being a troll. She would lean over me and pretend to sob over my body, wrapping me up in her arms. That was my favourite part. And gradually she would nurse me back to health, sometimes by giving me imaginary medicine, or by sprinkling me with fairy dust. And finally, _finally,_ once I felt I’d made the most of having Chrissie desperate for me to return to her, I would open my eyes, and the princess would be revived. 

We stopped playing that game as Chrissie got older. She humoured me for a while, playing just to keep me happy, but deep down it wasn’t the same. And then later she was a teenager, and she scoffed at the idea of the princess and the troll and the rocking horse. She was too busy with her sparkling, big-girl life to waste time in the nursery with me. 

A few times, I tried to play the game myself. Dad came in once while I was sprawled on the carpet, moaning pitifully. 

“Well, why can’t the princess revive herself?” Dad asked me, once I’d explained my predicament.

“It doesn’t work like that,” I told him. “I need Chrissie- I mean, I need the troll.” 

“Ah, but I thought it was the troll that caused all the problems in the first place?” 

He didn’t understand, but I didn’t really mind. 

“Would you like me to revive you?” he offered. “I could be a friendly giant? Or perhaps the king? Maybe he’s come looking for his precious daughter? After all, a king needs his princess!” 

It was a nice idea, but I shook my head resolutely, sitting up slightly and resting on my elbows. 

“No, it has to be Chrissie,” I informed him solemnly. 

Dad gave a little knowing smile. 

“I don’t think Chrissie’s coming, darling,” he said. “But I think the princess is old and strong enough to brush herself off, dust herself down, and find another solution. She’s very clever, I hear.” 

“Cleverer than Chrissie?” I asked eagerly, forgetting the game. 

“Equally as clever,” Dad said diplomatically. “And equally as lovely.” 

I pouted, sulking a bit. I adored Chrissie. I wanted to be just like her in every way. And yet I wanted to surpass her too. It was no fun being the little sister when your big sister started to find you annoying and leave you out. 

Why am I telling you this? I’m not sure really. I think perhaps I’m trying to avoid what I really ought to be telling you instead. It’s just difficult, you see. 

I might tell you another story first. This one is about my mum. 

Her name was Ellen, although to me she was Mummy, and then Mum. She was an amazing woman. Smart, sorted, terrifying. Scarily driven when she put her mind to something. No nonsense, and no excuses. 

She pushed us hard when it came to education. Sometimes it could be overwhelming back then, the way she’d obsess over our grades and prospects, but now I understand she only wanted the best for us. She never had the education she ought to, and I think it hurt her, to have that much untapped potential. To see us throwing our lives away was her worst nightmare, which explains how utterly devastated she was when Chrissie got pregnant with Lachlan and didn’t graduate. Dad was livid, shouting, declaring Donny (Chrissie’s boyfriend) would never enter the house again. Chrissie was arguing and crying and standing her ground. And Mum was just… sad. So sad. 

I think if I were Chrissie, Mum’s reaction would have been the worst of all. 

There is a point to me telling you this, I promise. 

All through my childhood I thought Mum was invincible, unstoppable. Dad was more frail than she was. Hurt from the trials of his past, suffering with a weak heart which he claimed was nothing, but could leave him struggling for breath at times.

I never thought to worry about Mum. None of us did. Which is why when they told us she had cancer, I could hardly believe it. 

I was in my early twenties when I found out. I still remember the world standing still as Dad told me, hearing the words like I was trapped underwater, not quite able to comprehend them. He didn’t tell me in front of Mum, probably because he was afraid my reaction would upset her. But Chrissie already knew. Chrissie and Mum were close, like best friends, really. I looked to Chrissie when Dad dropped that almighty bombshell, and saw only an informed sadness on her face, and a touch of concern for me. 

They didn’t want it to alter my life, they told me. I needn’t stop living life to the fullest on their account. Together, they would get through this. Chrissie would be by Mum’s side, and Dad would be there to support her. I was expected, no, _encouraged_ to go about life as usual. And I did, oh how I did. 

I partied until the early hours. I drank so much I’d end up being sick by the side of the road in the morning light as I stumbled home barefoot. I experimented with drugs, something I’ve never told anyone before. I slept with men for the fun of it, both single and taken, with no care whatsoever for the mess I was creating, the people I was hurting. I was known as a party girl, a wild child. At first I basked in the titles, back when I was still looking for something, anything, to stop me from thinking about Mum, and how she was slowly but surely fading away. I loved being untameable, the sort of girl who’d do anything if she drank enough, or if you dared her, or if you told her it’d be fun. I loved how other girls looked at me with disgust and disdain. I was the girl their boyfriends all wanted, you see. The girl who was out for a good time, to hell with everything else. I was willing to do things they wouldn’t stoop to, and it made them hate and envy me in equal measure. 

I didn’t have many friends. I had acquaintances. Those who hung around in similar circles. Those whose sofas I could crash on at a pinch. I lived life at one hundred miles an hour, but it was all empty. There was fun in it, and moments of joy that I snatched out of nothing, but deep down I always knew it was just another way to run, and be the same flighty, impetuous, contradictory little Rebecca I always had been.

When I finally came home for a weekend, after a summer of madness, Mum was different. Her hair was beautiful, a short, sleek brown bob that reflected the light when she moved her head. I told her it suited her, but deep down it scared me, seeing her like that. Because I knew it meant she had lost her hair. Underneath the wig I didn’t dare ask if she was entirely bald, or if some of her old hair remained in patches or clumps. I didn’t want to see it. I wished I didn’t know. 

Chrissie was twenty-eight, but she seemed far older. Completely and utterly mature. She’d had to grow up fast for Lachlan’s sake, but when Mum got ill she truly stepped up. While I was dancing myself to distraction, Chrissie was attending hospital appointments, helping to choose wigs, Mum’s closest confidante, and Dad’s pride and joy. 

When Mum had to go to hospital properly, Chrissie and Lachlan moved in with Dad. They’d practically been living with him anyway, but this made it final. It didn’t feel like my home anymore. Not without Mum in it. I felt, ridiculously, that Chrissie had somehow usurped her in her absence. She’d managed to stop being a child in Dad’s eyes, while I was still trapped on a level with Lachlan, never trusted with updates on Mum, always shielded from the more ‘gory’ details. 

I wasn’t around much during Mum’s chemo. I came and I went, dropping by on weekends and finding I’d missed so much in my absence that it was hardly worth hearing the news. Chrissie and Dad grew closer and closer, leaning on each other, making arrangements. 

I never thought she’d actually die. They told me she could, and everyone knows that cancer doesn’t care who it hurts, who it takes, but somehow I convinced myself that it wouldn’t take her. Not Mum. Chrissie and Dad seemed so prepared. They had everything sorted. And childishly I assumed that with all the private healthcare and drugs and time, she’d get better. 

Her leaving us wasn’t an option, until it was. And then she was gone. Just like that. 

One year she spent fighting the cancer, and for the first time in her life, Mum lost. She lost a battle. Something defeated her. 

“But how could it happen so quickly?” I asked Chrissie.

She gave me one of her mature, pitying looks. She was miserable, but pushing through it with the same tenacity as always.

“It was a year, Bex. We always knew this might happen. But we have to be strong now. For Dad. All right?” 

Of course I agreed, but it didn’t make sense. 

“She loved you very much,” Chrissie assured me quietly, “she wanted you to know that.”

Although she meant to comfort me, I received the words with rage. I was furious that Chrissie felt she had any right to tell me that. Like she knew Mum better than I did. Like she and Mum were friends and I was just some stupid little kid, never worthy of knowing what was going on. 

That was the moment I decided I hated my sister. After all the years of usual sisterly squabbling, of vicious insults, passive-aggression, ruthless oneupmanship, even the occasional fight, it was her condescending, almost motherly kindness after Mum died that pushed me over the edge. 

I never told her I hated her. I kept it to myself. I went to the funeral and cried myself silly while Chrissie stood next to Dad, holding his hand, expression grave and hard and beautiful. I listened to her speech at the wake, telling everyone all about our Mum, claiming ownership of her. I watched Dad give her Mum’s engagement ring as a keepsake, while I ended up with a few expensive but meaningless necklaces and brooches. 

And as time went on I drifted away. I played the part of loving little sister for Dad’s sake. I let Lachlan stay at my place whenever Chrissie wanted to go out with her new boyfriend, the latest high-flying addition to Dad’s company. They had their little bubble, and I had mine. I was okay with that. 

Of course it wasn’t long until I actually met this boyfriend of Chrissie’s, who was younger and more charming than I’d possibly imagined. Well dressed and charismatic and beautiful. More beautiful than my hopeless excuse for a boyfriend at the time. I saw him and I thought: why should Chrissie have him? Why should she have everything while I had nothing?

He was my age, after all, and he was clearly flirting with me. I know how to attract a man, and he wasn’t exactly a challenge. It took a painfully short amount of time for him to prove himself disloyal to my sister, and I drew a spiteful pleasure in it. That she couldn’t be all that special if she couldn’t keep a man. 

I was delighted when it became a more frequent thing, when Robert would call me up after rows with Chrissie, and I’d go running to him. I didn’t imagine I was being used, because I was using him too. Yes, he was getting sex, but so was I, and best of all, I was usurping my sister in the most powerful of ways.

The childish spite wasn’t strong enough to ease my conscience for long, though. The guilt was starting to slip through, the shame, the horror at what I’d done. But there was no point in stopping once I’d started because the damage was done. And in time, I convinced myself it was all right. Even once I’d figured out that I wasn’t the chosen sister after all. That I was a back-up option. 

I was in control, I told myself. And Chrissie deserved it. She did. I owed her nothing. 

In time, as I dug myself deeper and deeper, I even convinced myself I loved him. I stubbornly ignored the insincerity in his eyes, the bravado, the act, the way he’d disappear after sex and go back to Chrissie, never stopping to talk beyond the barest surface-level chat. Never holding me close. 

I couldn’t handle betraying my sister for a man who didn’t care about me, and so I drank up his lies just to ease the guilt and the pure humiliation of how stupid I’d been. Believing him made me less wicked. It made me gullible instead of cruel. And soon, I started to love him for real. 

I planned our future together inside my head, and he played along to make life easy. We’d have children, I thought. Get married. And if Chrissie didn’t like it? Well, that was her business. 

He was all I had. Mum was dead. Dad was always busy with Chrissie. My friends weren’t truly interested in me unless we were partying, and Chrissie, who had once been my best friend and most adored person, inspired such hatred in me that I could hardly bear to be around her. Seeing her face made me sick with guilt, which I chewed up and spat back out as bitter loathing. 

Eventually Robert and Chrissie got engaged, and I was so devastated by the news that I slept with Robert at their engagement party, using all of my own hurt to wound her back, for stealing the man that was hers in the first place. For taking him away from me. For taking all of my hopes and dreams and ending them in a second.

I wasn’t careful with Robert. I should have been. But I wasn’t, and I got pregnant. 

I had dreams of keeping it, of me and Robert moving away to some beautiful sunny island and bringing up our child. I wasn’t ready to be a mother, not by a long shot, but the unconditional love of a baby was something I craved. 

Robert didn’t want the child. When I told him about it my own delusions came crashing down around me. I saw the horror flash in his eyes, his fear of losing Chrissie, who he loved, and I realised that I was nothing to him. I was a problem. The baby I was carrying was a nightmare for him. An obstacle to his perfect life.

He drove me to the clinic and booked me a termination, and I said nothing. I never fought for that child. He never asked if I wanted to keep it, and I never truly saw it as an option. To Robert, it was a simple enough solution. Neither of us were ready for the baby, we’d not planned it, and so it was logical that it should go. Maybe one day it’d be the right time, he told me. Maybe one day in the future. And I consoled myself with that. I had to.

After the procedure was over, Robert decided we should never talk about it again, and so we didn’t. I cried in secret, mourned the loss of the child I’d never carried, and then booked a flight to take me away from all of it, so I could start again.

If you’re still with me after all that then congratulations. I can barely handle thinking about it all myself. But it’s relevant, I promise. 

Fast forward five years and you’re all caught up. Hi. Glad you made it. 

There are lots of things I haven’t told you, but if I went through it all, bit by bit, you’d never reach the most important part. Which is now. 

I suppose I can’t put it off for much longer. 

Okay. Time to be brave. 

The thing is, I’m pregnant. That’s not the bad news. It’s probably the only good part about this whole story. It’s the only thing that’s kept me going over these past few months. That, and Chrissie, and Dad. Even Robert. Yes, he’s still around. And he’s the father of my child, but he’s not married to Chrissie anymore, and he’s not with me, either. 

In typical Robert fashion, while married to my sister and seeking the same mindless sex he’d once found with me (and probably numerous others), he met the love of his life, who happened to be a man, broke up with Chrissie, married this ordinary little man, and then cheated on him in a moment of heartbroken madness. With me. Hello again. So it turns out I finally did get my baby with Robert. Funny how things turn out.

You might think I’ve not learned anything from before (hence the fact I fell back into bed with Robert), but I promise that I have.

I don’t need you telling me how stupid I am because I realise. That’s who I am, after all. Rebecca White. Indecisive. Selfish. Immature. I might be older and wiser now, but I still manage to mess everything up. 

But soon I’ll be a mother too, as well as all those bad things, and it’s going to change everything. 

I’m thirty now, and I think this is probably my last chance. Even before… before I knew about certain things, I knew I wanted this baby. I loved it so quickly that I could hardly believe it myself. And I wasn’t going to have a second termination. Not after last time. Not after all those regrets. 

I should explain to you that I’m not having this baby to try and trap Robert, as unlikely as it sounds. Honesty. 

It’s mad, really. For once, I actually have the power to do that if I wanted. I could have attempted to make him stay with me out of duty (even if I could never make him love me), but it turns out I no longer want him. After all I’ve done, all the sacrifices I made back when he was with Chrissie, it struck me, quite suddenly, that he isn’t worth it. I don’t think he ever was. 

I almost decided to go it alone. To do the whole pregnancy thing by myself. Can you imagine? I was going to travel abroad and start again (for a second time). Me, as a single mum. God, it’s a scary thought. The thought of being a mother at all terrifies me, but in a good way. Like I’m at the start of an adventure. Like a whole new world’s opening up to me. 

The thing is (and this brings me back to the point of all this), I don’t know how long this particular adventure’s going to last. 

Early on in my pregnancy, after it had all come out, what I’d done with Robert, what I’d done to Chrissie, and to Robert’s husband Aaron, I had to go to the hospital with cramps. I assumed it was the stress. 

But during my scan they found something. That can happen with ultrasounds, apparently. And, well…  it turns out I have a mass on my left ovary. A cyst, they called it at the time. They assured me it was nothing to worry about, and that they’d run some further tests, but I knew what it was the moment I saw the dark spot on the screen.

All those years I spent hating Chrissie for inheriting Mum’s fiery temper, and her ruthlessness, even her precious engagement ring, and all along I had a little inheritance of my own. Cancer. 

Nobody knows about it. Not Chrissie or Robert or Dad. My priority is the little one, my baby. Just as soon as he’s born (can you believe it? me, having a son?!), I can focus on treatment. And I will do it. I’ll have the op. Even the chemo. Even if that means losing my precious hair. Even if I’m terrified. 

I’ve had to make my peace with a lot of things these last few months. I’ve had to forgive a lot of people. Finding out you’re ill changes your perspective on things. That’s not just some storybook cliche, as it turns out.

I know I might not be the daughter that Dad wanted, but I know that he loves me, and him accepting my baby proves it. 

Robert might have hurt me in ways I can’t even begin to explain, but he’s the father of my child, and it truly looks like he’s stepping up. I can put aside how I feel about him, all that anger, all that pain, all the times I’ve wanted to scream in his face, and be a friend. Find common ground with him even. Laugh and smile. For the sake of our boy. 

I want my son to know his father. I need him to have someone just in case… 

Anyway, I need him to have someone. 

And of course I have Chrissie. Chrissie’s been like my rock. I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling guilty for what I put her through, or ever stop admiring her ability to forgive. She’s been by my side from the start, fighting my corner, fiercely defending me, convincing Dad to give me another chance, even accepting Robert back into our family, our home. 

I lie in bed at night wondering how I ever hated her so much, and I’ve realised it was never Chrissie I truly hated. I think, more than anything, I hated myself. 

So we’re back to the start of my story. The one about me and Chrissie playing on the rocking horse, me as the fair princess, Chrissie as a fearsome troll. I think maybe it was all just practice for what comes next. One of life’s strange little ways of getting me ready to face this. 

There’s no magic medicine which can cure me, and there’s no pixie dust to make the mass stop growing. 

But there’s Chrissie. She’ll pull me through this. She might not be able to nurse me back to health, but she can stay by my side, just like she stayed by Mum’s. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Chrissie won’t let it take me without a fight. And I doubt even the most fearsome of trolls could be a match for my sister.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this as a practice exercise for my creative writing course but it ended up pretty long and I found that I really liked writing for Rebecca. I don't usually write in first person and I probably won't again, but that was what the exercise was about, and so I sort of took it as an opportunity to explore a character that the show neglects a lot of the time. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this and that it wasn't too sad! 
> 
> Comments are much appreciated! 
> 
> xxx


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